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And sold to the highest bidder! Steve Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, placed the highest bid and is now the owner of a plantation basketball team!

Donald Sterling’s wife, Shelly, brokered the deal with Ballmer after Sterling allowed her to go ahead with the selling of the team. Ballmer beat out other offers, the Los Angeles Times reports. The deal isn’t final yet, it still has to be signed off by Sterling, and approved by the other NBA owners. Here’s more on the deal from the Times:

Ballmer, who was chief executive of Microsoft for 14 years, was chosen over competitors that included Los Angeles-based investors Tony Ressler and Steve Karsh and a group that included David Geffen and executives from the Guggenheim Group, the Chicago-based owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

A person with knowledge of the negotiations said the Geffen group bid $1.6 billion and Ressler at $1.2 billion…The prospective sale by Clippers co-owner Shelly Sterling comes five days ahead of an NBA hearing to oust her family from ownership following a controversy in which Donald Sterling insulted African-Americans in a secret audio recording.